When in Ventimiglia

Roman ruins are like catnip to me,

Admittedly, they are rarely that exciting when you actually get there - just a load of decrepit stone walls and floors - but that's really not what it's about.

It's that sense of people doing then what we do now: meeting, shopping, eating, going to the theatre (OK, cinema). And then that extraordinary feeling of being in the spaces where they did those things.

Personally, I love touching the stones, imagining the person who laid the stone, the last person to touch or use it, a couple of thousand years ago.

The Minx and I walked down to the excavation in Ventimiglia, this morning,  and enjoyed the old baths, forum, and amphitheatre. As well as the actual buildings - or what's left of them - it was interesting to consider their proximity to the sea and the river. I mean, you never really think about Romans going to the beach, do you?